We have put together a Kindle comparison so you can easily see the differences between all the current Amazon e-readers that are available to buy. We take a look at the original device and how things have evolved over the years. Our Kindle comparison chart should help you easily see the differences between each model.
Find out more at http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison
Months after the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080’s launch, the lines at brick-and-mortar stores across the country can still wrap around the block.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://www.wired.com/story/nvidia-amd-demand-pandemic-lines via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
The next generation of gaming is here with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X — except it isn’t, because there are almost no next-generation games to play on them. Demon’s Souls is the first title that can truly be called next-gen, and it shows — even though it’s a remake of a PS3 game… which also shows.
The original Demon’s Souls was an incredibly influential game. Its sequel, Dark Souls, was more popular and improved on the first quite a bit, but much of what made the now major series good had already been established. “Souls-like” is practically a genre now, though the originals are unsurprisingly still the nonpareil.
The comparative few who played Demon’s Souls were elated to hear that it was being remade, and by Bluepoint at that (who also remade the legendary Shadow of the Colossus), but worried that the game might not stand up by modern standards.
Can an old game, the essentials of which are a decade behind its descendants, be given a really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking coat of paint and still act as a blockbuster next-gen debut? Well, it kind of has to — there’s no other option! Fortunately the game really does hold up, and in fact makes for a harrowing, cinematic experience despite a few significant creaks.
I don’t want to give a full review of the game itself; let it suffice to say that, although it looks and runs much better, the core of the game is almost entirely unchanged. Any review from the last decade is still completely relevant, down to the “magic is overpowered” and “inventory burden is annoying.”
As a next-gen gaming experience, however, Demon’s Souls is as yet without comparison. It serves as a showcase not only for the PS5’s graphical prowess, but its sound design, haptics, speed, and OS.
Image Credits: Sony
First, the graphics. It’s clear that Sony and Bluepoint intended this to be a truly lavish remake, and the game’s structure — essentially five long, mostly linear levels — provides an excellent platform for breathtaking visuals carefully tuned to the user’s experience.
The environments themselves are incredibly detailed, and the various enemies you fight very well realized, but what I kept being impressed by was the lighting. Realistic lighting is something that has proven difficult even for top-tier developers, and it’s only now that the hardware has enough headroom to start doing it properly.
Demon’s Souls doesn’t use ray-tracing, the computation-heavy lighting technique perennially on the cusp of being implemented, but the real-time lighting effects are nevertheless dramatic and extremely engaging. This is a dark, dark world and the player is very limited as far as personal light sources, meaning the way you experience the environment is carefully designed.
Although the detailed armor, props, and monsters are all very nice, it’s the realistic lighting that really sets them off in a way that seems truly new and beautiful. Dynamic range is used properly, to have actually dark areas illuminated dramatically, such as the still-terrifying Tower of Latria.
Image Credits: Sony
The game isn’t a huge leap over the best the PC has to offer right now, but it does make me excited for game designers who really want to use light and shadow as gameplay elements.
(Incidentally, don’t bother with the “cinematic” option versus “performance.” The latter keeps the game silky smooth, which for Souls games is a luxury, and the other setting didn’t improve the look much if at all, while severely affecting the framerate. Skip it unless you’re taking glamour shots.)
Similarly sound is extremely well done in the game, though I’m cautious about hyping Sony’s “3D audio” — really, games have had this sort of thing for years on many platforms. Having a decent pair of headphones is the important bit. But perhaps the PS5 offers improved workflows for spatializing sound; at all events in Demon’s Souls it was very good, with great separation, location, and clarity. I have reliably dodged an enemy attack from offscreen after recognizing the characteristic grunt of an attacking foe, and the screeches and roars of dragons and boss monsters (as well as the general milieu of Latria) were suitably chilling.
Image Credits: Sony
This combined well with the improved haptics of the DualSense controller, which seemed to have a different “sensation” for every event. A dragon flying overhead, a demon stomping the ground, a blocked attack, an elevator ride. Mostly these were good and only aided immersion, but some, like the elevators, felt to me more like an annoying buzz than a rumble, like holding a power tool. I hope that developers will be sensible about these things and identify vibration patterns that are irritating. Fortunately the intensity can be adjusted universally in the PS5’s controls.
Likewise the adaptive triggers were nice but not game-changing. It was helpful when using the bow to know when the arrow was ready to release, for instance, but beyond a few things like that it was not used to great advantage.
Something that had a more immediate effect on how I played was the incredibly short load times. The Souls series has always been plagued by long load times when traveling and dying, the latter of which you can expect to do a lot. But now it’s rare that I can count to three before I’m materializing at the bonfire again.
This significantly reduces (but far from eliminates) frustration in this infamously unforgiving game, and actually makes me play it differently. Where once I could not be bothered to briefly travel to another area or the hub in order to accomplish some small task, now I know I can return to the Nexus, fuss around a bit with my loadout, and be back in Boletaria in 30 seconds flat. If I die, I’m back in action in five seconds rather than twenty, and believe me, that adds up real fast. (Load times are improved across the board in PS4 games running on the PS5 as well.)
Aiding this, kind of, is the new fancy pause screen Sony has implemented on its new console. When hitting the (annoyingly PS-shaped) PS button, a set of “cards” appears showing recent achievements and screenshots, but also ongoing missions or game progress. Pausing in Latria to take a breath, the menu offered up the ability to instantly warp to one of the other worlds, losing my souls but skipping the ordinarily requisite Nexus stop. This will certainly change how speedruns are accomplished, and provides a useful, if somewhat immersion-breaking, option for the scatterbrained player.
The pause menu also provides a venue for tips and hints, in both text and video form. Again this is a funny game to debut these in (I don’t count Astro’s Playroom, the included game/tech demo, which is fun but slight), because one of the Souls series’s distinctive features is player-generated notes and ghosts that alternatively warn and deceive new players. In another game I might have relied on the PS5’s hints more, but for this specific title they seem somewhat redundant.
As arguably the only “real” PS5 launch title, Demon’s Souls is a curious but impressive creature. It definitely shows the new console to advantage in some ways, but the game itself (while still amazing) is dated in many ways, limiting the possibilities of what can be shown off in the first place.
Certainly the remake is the best (and for many, only) way to play a classic, and for that alone it is recommended — though the $70 price (more in Europe and elsewhere) is definitely a bit of a squinter. One would hope that for the new higher asking price, we could expect next-generation gameplay as well as next-generation trimmings. Well, for now we have to take what we can get.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/13/demons-souls-the-first-truly-next-gen-game-is-a-lopsided-but-impressive-showcase/ via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
Nintendo will never stop mining its past for new nostalgia-based products, but at least it tends to do so with aplomb and occasionally even generosity. The former at least is on display with the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch, a standalone handheld that plays the first Mario game, its unbelievably hard “Lost Levels” sequel, and acts as a totally impractical timepiece.
This tiny gaming system isn’t the most practical thing in the world, but it is a charming piece of hardware that does exactly what it says on the tin.
Turn on the Game & Watch with a button on the side and you can select between, naturally, the Game and Watch modes. In game mode, you can select between playing the original Super Mario Bros. for NES, the sequel we never got in the U.S., but was eventually released as “The Lost Levels,” and a recreation of an old-school LCD game where Mario juggles balls at ever-increasing speeds.
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch
The screen, while certainly small, is bright and sharp, apparently displaying the exact pixel dimensions of the original Nintendo game. It plays well, too — the controls are responsive, though it feels strange to play the game on anything other than an original NES controller. The buttons of the Game & Watch are a bit softer than I’d like — but they were good enough that I cleared the first set of levels without any real frustration other than my own lack of skill.
While there is no support for saving or rewinding the game — pretty much essential for the 99 percent of us who can’t beat it honestly — at least you don’t have to to try to beat it in one sitting. The game freezes its state when you turn if off or switch to any other game or mode, meaning you can play a couple levels between subway stops and not worry about losing progress.
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch
You can hand it back and forth with a friend (after sanitizing it, of course) too, since player 2 uses the same controls.
The juggling game is a fun little diversion but, like most of those old LCD games, goes from really boring to nearly impossible in the course of about 60 seconds.
Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch
The “Watch” mode has a charming little landscape with the current time made out of bricks, and Mario running across the screen below stomping goombas and avoiding bullet bills. If you watch for a while he’ll moonwalk, mount a pipe, and perform other hijinks. You can switch the background from normal to hills to mushroom platforms. I wouldn’t use it as a watch but if you don’t want to pull your phone out while you’re playing, there you go.
For $50 it may seem a little steep, and perhaps it is. If this had Marios 1 through 3 on it I would consider it a bargain, especially considering the ability to come back to the game time after time — I’d work my way through the epic-length third game with pleasure.
As it is, however, it’s hard to justify the price — except, of course, as a gift to a Nintendo-loving friend or loved one. That’s why I suspect these will sell like hotcakes this holiday season. With no new Switch hardware, no N64 mini, and no must-have games on Nintendo’s platforms, it’s looking a bit dry, but a Game & Watch is just silly enough — and decent enough — a device to sate the hunger of a retro-minded gamer for a few days.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/13/nintendos-mario-game-watch-is-a-choice-gaming-stocking-stuffer-of-2020/ via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
Every basic fitness watch now has to be square (or sq?). We don’t make the rules.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://www.wired.com/review/garmin-venu-sq-music via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
This week, we discuss the implications of Apple’s switch to using custom silicon in its Mac laptops and desktops.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://www.wired.com/story/gadget-lab-podcast-481 via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
Picking the right phone has become increasingly difficult. This breakdown of Apple’s lineup will help.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://www.wired.com/gallery/iphone-buying-guide via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
Buying someone a gadget is a time-honored tradition, but these days it can be particularly fraught, considering you may buy them a fitness tracker that also monitors emotions, or a doorbell that snitches to the cops. Mozilla has put together a helpful list of popular gadgets with ratings on just how creepy they are.
“Privacy not included” has become an annual tradition for the internet rights advocate, and this year has an especially solid crop of creepy devices, given the uptick in smart speakers, smart security cameras and smart litterboxes.
On the “creepy” end of the spectrum is… pretty much everything by Amazon except the Kindle. The devices in question send tons of data to Amazon by design, of course, but Mozilla feels the company hasn’t yet earned the trust to make that sort of thing acceptable. Facebook’s Portal earns a creepy spot for a similar reason.
Image Credits: Mozilla
Some random gadgets like a smart coffee maker and Moleskine smart notebook get creepy ratings because they don’t give the kinds of assurances about data and security that any company collecting that information should give. That sort of thing is common in smart gadgets — they may not be fundamentally creepy, but the company that makes them reserves the right to make it creepy at any time.
On the other end of the spectrum, Withings earns points for its smart devices with reasonable privacy policies and security. Non-Ring smart doorbells get good marks, and Garmin’s smart watches too.
These are informal rankings based on the potential for abuse or exposure of your data, and it doesn’t mean that they’re perfectly safe or private. If you’re buying one of these things, it’s best to immediately go through the settings and preferences and disable anything that smells invasive or creepy. You can always enable features again, but once you’ve put your data out there, it’s hard to get it back.
Check out the rest of the list here.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/12/gifting-a-gadget-check-its-creep-factor-on-mozillas-privacy-not-included-list-of-shame/ via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
If you know someone who wants to break out of their stuffy home this winter, give them these escape tools.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://www.wired.com/gallery/outdoors-gift-ideas via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
I installed a solar power system in my home in an attempt at “energy resilience.” The constraints—and the headaches—were greater than I anticipated.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://www.wired.com/story/home-solar-power-and-energy-resilience via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
As of June 1, 2021, all uploads to the cloud-based storage service will count against your 15-GB data cap.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176395 https://www.wired.com/story/google-photos-free-unlimited-storage-ends via http://www.kindlecompared.com/kindle-comparison/
Kindle Compared 